Any new improvements with GH1 Audio and Devices?

cheap noisy limiters and pumping compressors....yuck! these mini recorders with xlr inputs are all better with a decent phantom powered mic than the GH1 audio.
 
In the market for a standard pod myself. Having worked with other pods, I know I want something with click lock legs, not twist tighteners prone to "the droop"..and a ball leveling head to make uneven terrain quickly manageable. Unfortunately, most reasonably priced pods with those two features don't seem to include a pedestal. I think Davis & Sanford makes one but it may be a bit fussy in terms of ergonomics.
 
The DR-100 is AWFUL. Don't get it. A terrible recorder. On the low end, get a zoom h4n and have an electrician put in new higher end preamps... the oade brothers won't do the zoom h4n for whatever reason. The a/d converter in the zoom is great as are the 90/120 degree x/y fx mics, but the preamps suck. Change the preamps to a better one and it's amazing, shouldn't cost much.

Next up would be the tascam hd-p2
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/405341-REG/Tascam_HD_P2_Portable_CF_Stereo.html

Good deal for $750... decent preamps (better than zoom) ... looks pro better i/o and people will take you seriously.. but no ambient fx mics like the zoom.

Top of the line of course would be sound devices 702. Best preamp and a/d in the world with an electronic path so clear you can hear god whisper to you.
 
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I did own one. I returned it. I have owned or worked with almost every high and low end piece of audio gear there is from tascam CASSETTE 4 tracks, high end divas, tape nagras, digital nagras, tascam old dat recorders and the new CF recorders.

There is the chance I had a bad unit but the headphone amp was terrible, the preamps were hissy and low. I read the specs too and they looked good, but the sound did not sound good.

The Zoom H4N also varies in quality from unit to unit because the company buys various components in bulk and the preamps vary in quality all the time - they wont publish the full electrical specs. I have had three of them and the first one sounded like cardboard, the second one was much better but still not that great, and on the third one I had the preamps replaced. If you PM me I can give you the info on the guy who did it... it's similar to what the oade brothers do, but they will not modify your unit they only SELL modded units themselves here:

http://www.oade.com/

They are very good by the way,so if you can afford it you can buy a tascam hd-p2 from them that sounds and functions a lot better than the stock - but these things are subjective and depends on how much of an audio nut you are.

Any system nowadays is better than what many multi million dollar studios were using just 20 years ago spec wise.... yet still... modern stuff may not sound as nice as film dialog captured on an old tape nagra with a high end mic. It all depends on what you consider 'good sound'. Sound is all colored like film stocks effect light so does every other component effect the sound color and quality.

IMHO the best there is is the sound devices 702 series. The quality out of that thing is just mind boggling. The preamps, the headphone amps, the build quality, the a/d d/a quality.. the routing capability and functionality. The blinding light saber like led lights. If you have the money, by sound devices. There are more expensive devices that hollywood sets use, but after that point you go into the land of insanity of cost verses and actual improved quality in sound.

Got 8 or 9 thousand laying around? Don't **** around and get a nagra vi:

http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=1027&cat=0&page=1
 
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I used to be on other side.
Looking and talking to all modifiers of amplifiers and high-end recievers.
About 99.9% of this modifications are complete bullshit.
I also do not believe in magic of perfect op-amps.
As I used to see how perfect sound had been produced using mixer with bunch of cheap JRC stuff.
Worse even, once studio used very cheap Behringer mixer and did not informed very picky musician about that. He liked result very much (and did not like it in previous informed situations :-) )

All I really believe in is proper THD+N and frequency response measurements. You can get few other measurements. But for dialog for any indie film it is more than enought.

This is something like idiots who tweak their speakers crossovers for years instead to make same thing using DCX unit.
 
Blackout said:
I did own one. I returned it. I have owned or worked with almost every high and low end piece of audio gear there is from tascam CASSETTE 4 tracks, high end divas, tape nagras, digital nagras, tascam old dat recorders and the new CF recorders.

There is the chance I had a bad unit but the headphone amp was terrible, the preamps were hissy and low. I read the specs too and they looked good, but the sound did not sound good.

The Zoom H4N also varies in quality from unit to unit because the company buys various components in bulk and the preamps vary in quality all the time - they wont publish the full electrical specs. I have had three of them and the first one sounded like cardboard, the second one was much better but still not that great, and on the third one I had the preamps replaced. If you PM me I can give you the info on the guy who did it... it's similar to what the oade brothers do, but they will not modify your unit they only SELL modded units themselves here:

http://www.oade.com/

They are very good by the way,so if you can afford it you can buy a tascam hd-p2 from them that sounds and functions a lot better than the stock - but these things are subjective and depends on how much of an audio nut you are.

Any system nowadays is better than what many multi million dollar studios were using just 20 years ago spec wise.... yet still... modern stuff may not sound as nice as film dialog captured on an old tape nagra with a high end mic. It all depends on what you consider 'good sound'. Sound is all colored like film stocks effect light so does every other component effect the sound color and quality.

IMHO the best there is is the sound devices 702 series. The quality out of that thing is just mind boggling. The preamps, the headphone amps, the build quality, the a/d d/a quality.. the routing capability and functionality. The blinding light saber like led lights. If you have the money, by sound devices. There are more expensive devices that hollywood sets use, but after that point you go into the land of insanity of cost verses and actual improved quality in sound.

Got 8 or 9 thousand laying around? Don't poo poo around and get a nagra vi:

http://www.trewaudio.com/store/product.php?productid=1027&cat=0&page=1
Click to expand...
Here is a valuable contribution to the debate...

E. :-)
 
Vitali,

When it comes right down to it you are correct, nothing matters except how it sounds to the end client and the audience and yourself.

I have very sensitive ears and eyes, I can't watch cable HD without being disgusted by the horrible compression artifacts in wide detailed shots - especially in audience pans when they all turn into blocks. You are the miracle worker who made the GH1 usable. I hated the compression before you unlocked it. Most people don't notice or care.

With audio... everything nowadays has 'CD quality' ... whatever the hell that means. What I know is that many things sound noisy and thin and are too accentuated in the treble and lack a warm 'full' sound. To me, my PERFECT combo is the sanken cs-3e mic with the sound devices 702 going DIRECT into the 702 and using its preamps, not going through a sound devices 442 mixer into a 702.

Played back on a high end system, the voices of actors or voice over work is SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB, not even comparable to what a consumer device would record on ANY level.

That being said, I have used the zoom h4n on films, but if you walk on a real set with that thing as a sound man you will be fired.

This doesn't mean in can't get good sound, but the preamps are definitely mediocre
at best and unreliable from unit to unit. Meaning one zoom h4n does not sound like another as far as preamps go unless you get them within a very similar serial number range.

The on-board mics are excellent for recording ambient sound and FX for surround mixes.

Many people have PMed me on this and if you have an electrical audio engineer friend who knows how to replace preamp chips and do that sort of stuff, you can probably get a massive improvement for around $60 to $120 bucks. The improvement in sound to me was definitely worth the money and definitely noticeable. After my friend did whatever he did, the H4n no longer has weird distortion issues with my sanken cs-3e and the noise floor lowered significantly. It still does not sound as good as my sd 702 by a long shot but it's very good and definitely usable.

The tascam hd-p2 is better than the stock zoom, and more rugged, and has more features, I would get that if you can afford it. It is also more professional looking if your hire yourself out.
 
Blackout said:
Vitali,

...I can't watch cable HD without being disgusted by the horrible compression artifacts in wide detailed shots - especially in audience pans when they all turn into blocks....
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It cracked me up to see that when I cancelled my cable TV service to save money, that the OTA broadcast signal on a $20 set of HD rabbit ears from Target actually looked better...without the compression problems! :D


But with audio recorders, I guess it's about finding the right one for a person's needs. I shoot weddings...dirt cheap wedding videos. I don't need XLR, and I have to rely on auto gain often since I have no control over levels from grooms/brides/ministers (all on the same mic), string quartets with no soundcheck, church soundboards, DJ's speakers mic'd at point blank, maid of honors who use the DJ's mic as a pointing device when toasting, etc. I finally settled on the Yamaha CX. I use three of them for weddings....and they're so tiny they fit in a groom's pocket with a Giant Squid lapel mic with a custom 1' mini jack cable. The price is right, and they do the job. I'd probably use something different if I were a film-maker.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...POCKETRAK_CX_Pocketrak_CX_Digital_Stereo.html

http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/
 
Another recorder to look at in between the zoom h4n and the tascam hd=p2 is the fr2-le

It SOUNDS terrible on set when you are recording. Really bad headphone amp, but it sound very good when you dump the files into your computer.
 
Pick this up. The guys who do the modification are super cool and you can have 4 dedicated tracks with really great quality. I often have to sacrifice when having just two inputs on my 150.. so now I essentially have 6 discrete inputs and that's huge for some of the events that I end up doing.
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
I used to be on other side.
Looking and talking to all modifiers of amplifiers and high-end recievers.
About 99.9% of this modifications are complete bullshi*.
I also do not believe in magic of perfect op-amps.
As I used to see how perfect sound had been produced using mixer with bunch of cheap JRC stuff.
Worse even, once studio used very cheap Behringer mixer and did not informed very picky musician about that. He liked result very much (and did not like it in previous informed situations :-) )

All I really believe in is proper THD+N and frequency response measurements. You can get few other measurements. But for dialog for any indie film it is more than enought.

This is something like idiots who tweak their speakers crossovers for years instead to make same thing using DCX unit.
Click to expand...

Vitaliy, you're already a golden god for the Lumix hack but this post just upped you to platinum god. Hear hear.
 
I don't agree... he 'modded' the GH1 to make it better. I did the same with the zoom h4n. Hardware mod or software mod doesn't matter as long as the mod provides better quality that can be measured seen or heard.

As to the above question "No Rode, no Sennheiser, no Audio Technica? Is Sanken cs-3e better?"

I have used all the top end mics used on film sets. Indoor studio sets with ultra silent air conditioning generally use scheops mics (mainly cmc641) for close up and medium shots, but the problem with that mic is it just picks up EVRYTHING... if there is ANY location noise other than the actor talking you are screwed. They USED to use the sennheiser 416 for outdoors, this is now taken over by the sanken cs-3e.

Rode & audio technica to me really do not compare in sound quality... but that is my opinion.
They are a good budget choice for students perhaps, but you're never gonna see an audio technica mic on a hollywood film set.

When I chose the Sanken cs-3e, I had already worked with many mics... and I could only afford to buy one that had to be able to work in multiple environments equally well, and had to have that magic sound that movie dialog has... the ability to 'pull' the dialog from the other noise, reverb, echo... ect.

Now ideally you have a huge kit of $20,000 in mics, but I couldn't afford that, and after researching and doing a lot of reading on the pro newsgroups and then going into some high end stores for location sound in LA, I chose the sanken cs-3e, which oddly was the most expensive out of the lot.

It has a TAD more self noise than some other mics but nothing that would ever be noticed, and it has what I would call an almost magical ability to pull actors dialog and reject off axis sounds.

It's not just me, a lot of sound pros say this is the 'if I HAD to only have one mic' mic.
Google it.. there is nothing but praise. But truly, you'd have to hook it up to some amazing preamps and a recorder, then play it back on some high end monitors or better yet, watch a film you did with it in a movie theater and you'll know what I'm talking about. Go rent "The Curious case of Benjamen Button" and turn it up, that whole movie was recorded mostly with the sanken cs-3e.

You can also go on imdb and google tech specs to see all the movies that used it... ER used sanken cs3 and cs-3e's almost exclusively, as did a number of shows and films. It's just a fantastic mic because of it's unique pickup pattern.. it's not really a full shotgun like the 416 that can end up sounding tinny and sound awful indoors, it's a super Cardiod with a very unique capsule design, and the e stands for extended bass response.
 
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shooter_ said:
What features?

Doesn't the zoom h4n have 4 tracks against the tascam hd-p2?
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The zoom has 'pseudo 4 track' meaning you can plug in two xlrs and then use it's built in mics at the same time. It's not a true 4 track recorder.

There are some nice uses for this weird mode... you can plug in guitars and record with mics and the built in stereo mics at the same time for some interesting effect....

Listen to an example here:

http://www.zoomh4.net/h4n

Not really important on a film set.... on a film set the tascam hd-p2 is better. Bigger buttons, better menu control, more reliable CF cards, much better naming system and you can even plug in a keyboard and name the scenes and takes correctly as you go.. good luck doing that on a zoom.... with the zoom I just write the
#of the mono file on the slate under the ROLL section, so that the editor can see
078 in his nle and know to grab file mono078.wav out of the audio folder I dump
to him before I leave if I am doing audio.

Basically, the zoom is part of my 'low budget indie kit' when people wont pay, I rent my SD 702 out with another kit, and I use the zoom h4n and shove it in my pocket. Many people wonder "where is all your shi*?!?!?" meaning the huge blue porta brace bags and mixers and heavy ton of crap that most audio guys bring.... but honestly, unless you are doing a high budget movie you are not mixing 7 sound sources at a time, you are getting all the main dialog from medium and close up shots and just hovering over on a long boom pole for the master wide shot. I now put the zoom h4n inside a huge blue bag so no one knows what I am doing anyway.

If a director gives you crap about using a zoom, just link him to this article:

http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/559340.html

Of course, that article is a completely over blown fluff piece paid for by Zoom.. the movie 'Hole in the Head' doesn't exist anywhere that I can find...but it's impressive looking and you can say, "hey the sound designer from Tron uses the H4n.. and SO do I!"

We all know appearances mean a lot. Just how you will be more respected if you trick out your GH1 or 7D with huge tripods, rails, matte boxes, glide rails.. random bicycle parts... ect... doesn't matter if it's even affecting the shot ONE bit... people THINK it is and take you more seriously. Since Philip Bloom got George Lucas to say he likes the Canon 7D and 5D, that frikken link has been everywhere and EVERYONE wants to shoot on a 7D over a GH1 now even though the hacked GH1 is obviously better.

So people take the Tascam more seriously than the zoom h4n.... absolutely. In truth, it is better, but not THAT much better, but the preamps and functionality are better and it LOOKS a lot more pro. With modded preamps the zoom is pretty amazing and a great little all around magic sound recorder box in a tiny packlage, and again, the little included stereo condesor mics are pretty amazing for SFX, room and ambient tone.. ect, but useless for movie dialog.

Here is a funny zoom site:
http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/

And I quote:

"We're all about the preamp - our new, digitally controlled, high-quality preamplifier renders audio so precise, you'll sound like you recorded in a world-class studio. And this new preamp means you can make recording level adjustments on the fly. Of course, an automatic level setting function is also built in to optimize the level quickly as the situation requires."

Recording level adjustments on the fly? ummm... can't ANY frikken device do that.. and on the fly means you can hit a button up or down, it is not an analog knob,whch is an issue, and the stock preamps are VERY low and you have to boost the gain all the way up,and they distort easy with phantom power mics, and they distort easy with line level inputs cause you can't bypass them.. so what the hell are they talking about??! If the preamps are so good why don't they just say we use 'this brand' preamp'. They won't, cause they change em from batch to batch. I know for a FACT my first zoom h4n sounded WAY different than my second one. I'm not crazy, I have good ears. I BASHED it when it first came out and bashed it hard.

But again... you CAN get some amazing sound out of this thing sometimes.

I digress. Let's move on.

I hate lavs.

If you are going to use lavs you have to use the very BEST lavs, and even then I think they sound awful compared to good boom recordings, so I don't own lavs, I rent them from gotham when needed. I don't want to spend $8000 on lavs for people who freak out at paying $300/day for sound, which is my current low end rate.

I make far more money offering a full package of the hacked GH1, light kit, and sound & editing together in a package, then I do from doing sound, but I get a lot more sound work because EVERYONE and their mom thinks they are a DP now and the market is flooded because of cheap cameras.

NO one knows how to do sound, so they buy their cheap digital camera and get a pretty picture with horrible sound...

That's when I get a call.

;)

By the way.. the true comedy in all of this:

I'm an actor. I got into tech because I didn't want to 'wait' to be discovered, I wanted to make my own films.

That's what I said when I was 8 years old and I discovered VHS recorders didn't 'look' like the movies and my dad could not explain why.

As Spaceballs would say, finally, "we're at now now.... when did we pass then? JUST NOW!"
 
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PS: here is the ultimate thread on the awesome quality of the Sanken cs-3e mic (I chime in on this thread too.. see if you can figure who is me)

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-things-audio/477209-sanken-cs-3e-magic-mic.html

A quote like this from a boom op on high end hollywood films though really sums it up. The Sanken cs-3e is the go to mic of hollywood when on real locations:

Just stumbled onto this link and thought I should chime in. I am a boom operator mainly for feature films. I work with a lot of different mixers and on a regular basis I have the opportunity to use a lot of different shotgun and location sound mics including the Sennheiser 816, 416, 70, 60, 50, 406 (the 406 is an extremely underrated mic), and the Schoeps CMIT and CMC641, etc- pretty much everything but the new Rode mic, I would wager. Nothing sounds as good as a Schoeps CMC641 in my opinion, but due to today's realities of poor locations, loud camera fans or shutters, wide and tight camera angles and the sort, it's a mic that I can't use as often as I would like. When I can't use the CMC641, which is most often, my first choice is always the Sanken CS3e. I first used it in 2006 while filming The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and it was the go-to mic for most of that film due to the extremely loud cooling fans on the Viper system cameras.

It is a mic whose performance continues to literally amaze me on a weekly, if not daily basis. The off-axis rejection is stellar and has saved the sound on literally dozens of scenes that I've done. It is definitely a mid-range forward mic, as compared to something like a Sennheiser 60 which tends to be flatter and "more natural" across the spectrum, but it manages to still be rather smooth in comparison to a 416; that is, it pretty much never sounds harsh as compared to a 416 which can be rather "prickly" and painful to my ears at times. All this and the on-axis bass response is incredible at close range or at a distance, and it sounds great indoors, even in small rooms with a lot of echo. The pattern is rather tight and falls somewhere between an 816 and 416, which means that in the wrong hands, it can be easy to miss your target, but you get used to it. That said, I have had a great number of times where when micing multiple actors, I've had to use the side of the mic at closer proximity to one of the actors in a manner where you would think it would sound totally off-axis and unbalanced in comparison to the other actors who were more on-axis, especially for a mic with such a pickup pattern, yet the mixer had no idea because it sounded great.

The amount of "suck" that this mic has (suck being the ability to be a long distance from your target, yet still have the target sound on-axis and focused) is what is so amazing about this mic. It's rivals the 816 for the amount of suck you get, but with less than half the size and weight of an 816. This is what constantly amazes me about this mic, and I will frequently say to mixers after a take, "Damn, have I told you yet today how much I love this mic?"

On my last project, our CS3e went in for repair and I felt almost crippled without it and the product did suffer a bit. While we made it through, when the repaired mic came back to us, it went back into immediate use, and improved the sound of the location we were in.
Click to expand...
 
Even more info on the zoom h4n..

this guy modded it and thought is was usable but still didn't like it and gives VERY detailed specs:

http://www.martin-doppelbauer.de/fieldrecorder/


Just for your own listening pleasure, here are some raw 24 bit /48k files right from the Zoom h4n -pre mod and post mod.

To me, I can CLEARLY hear the difference in the modded preamps.

I am using the same mic - the sanken cs-3e,and I am being careful with my placement. I KNOW how to use this mic.

Here is before the mod (on my 2nd zoom)

http://www.blackout.com/blackout/zoom/MONO-004.wav

To me, the girl sounds cardboardy (my own term) and off axis. She was NOT off axis.. I was right on her with perfect technique.

Here is a scene AFTER modding the preamps. Lower noise detectable instanrly with more headroom, and mind you this is in one of the WORST possible on location environments, a high school hallway with tile floors.... still, the dialog POPs out from the environment... and this is raw before ANY eq, post fixes or compression.

Ideally I would have the same scene for comparison but this was months later after I had the mod done to my zoom.

http://blackout.com/clients/teenage_wasteland/MONO-041.wav

Everything sounds better to my ears AFTER the mod.
 
Blackout

Looks like quite emotional response.
And many of them...

How about using measures and not emotions?
Did you hear about double blind test?
We'll get other unmodified Zoom, match levels and record same things (without you knowing) and you must be able to tell which is which .
Same thing with mikes.
That I know is that sound guys have big trouble finding middle level condencers and
dynamic mics brands in such tests.

I really think that having Sanken is very good idea. But about 98% readers here will never get it :-)
 
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